Digital payments company Visa has unveiled a suite of new digital-first products and services that it claims will revolutionise the card and address the future needs of businesses, merchants, consumers and the financial institutions that serve them.
The products were announced at the annual Visa Payments Forum for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and are set to be rolled out over the coming year.
“With rapidly accelerating digital payments growth across Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, we have seen a transformation in how consumers and merchants want to pay and be paid both online and in-store,” said Andrew Torre, Regional President, Visa CEMEA.
“As we continue to shape the future of commerce, we are excited to announce the next generation of truly digital-first payment experiences to support consumers, merchants and our clients and partners. Today we are unveiling new card features and digital innovations that will bring consumers and merchants into a more customized, convenient, secure and inclusive future.”
Visa is introducing a portfolio of innovative new solutions that support digital identity, seamless checkout experiences, flexible payments, nano-merchant acceptance and protecting the security of account-to-account payments.
In addition, Visa is announcing Visa Pay, a new payments-as-a-service platform that provides mobile-first experiences for digital payments and interoperable send-and-receive that has been developed for the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region. The Visa Pay platform brings together extensive payment capabilities and provides a range of services for banks to quickly deploy new innovative solutions including digital issuance, payment initiation, tap-to-pay, fraud and risk management, wallet platforms, and more.
Visa is also introducing a slew of new ways to use the card when tapped on a mobile device, such as Tap to Confirm: Easily authenticates identity when shopping online, Tap to Add Card: Enhances security when adding card into a wallet or app and Tap to P2P (person-to-person): Allows money to be sent between family and friends.
To bolster security and protect user identities, the Visa card scheme is introducing a Payment Passkey service to replace the need for passwords by confirming a consumer’s identity and authoring online payments with a quick scan of their biometrics like a face or fingerprint. Built on the latest Fast Identity Online (FIDO) standards, the Visa Payment Passkey Service confirms a consumer’s identity and authorizes online payments with a quick scan of their biometrics like a face or fingerprint. When shopping online, Visa passkeys replace the need for passwords or one-time codes, enabling more streamlined, secure transactions.
Visa is launching Click to Pay to power a more seamless and secure checkout experience at scale, where consumers will simply need their registered email, phone number or Visa Payment Passkey to check-out online. Additionally, in many markets around the world, Visa will partner with issuers to enable Click to Pay and Visa Payment Passkey Service on new Visa cards, reducing manual entry of card details and passwords from the moment the card arrives. Click to Pay is available in CEMEA today.
The payments leader is also rolling out Visa Protect for Account-to-Account (A2A) Payments. Visa sees over 200 billion transactions every year and analyses 500 data elements in every transaction to identify and stop fraud in real time. Working with Real-Time Payments (RTP) networks around the world, the company says it’s overlaying decades of Visa expertise in applying AI to help mitigate fraud for account-to-account payments on RTP networks. Visa Protect for A2A Payments is already identifying 60% of RTP fraud and scams previously undetected by financial institutions where live in the UK and Latin America. Visa Protect for A2A Payments will be available in the CEMEA region over coming months.
Other services Visa is launching are Visa Pay, a payments-as-a-service platform that allows banks to rapidly launch a range of new digital consumer and seller services through their own mobile banking apps, Visa Flexible Credential which will allow a single card product to toggle between payment methods, and Nano Merchant Acceptance that will offer merchants new ways to pay or be paid on a mobile device. This will include USSD Push Payments: allowing digital payments through any feature phone, Micro-merchant Acceptance: Which allows money transfer from consumer to merchant through smartphone devices and Tap to Phone: Any device can now be a point-of-sale (POS) by simply tapping a card or a digital credential.
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